True to their relentless demand for open borders everywhere, the editors of the Wall Street Journal blame the chaos at the port of Calais on the simple but probably futile desire of the English to remain English:
The EU has the right to secure borders and needs to invest far more in border protection, especially at sea. But an enforcement-only policy won’t work against hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants and wily traffickers. If Europe wants to channel the immigration flood, it will also have to broaden legal opportunities for orderly migration while loosening regulations that strangle employment opportunities for the poor, wherever they may be from. Immigration needn’t be a problem for societies that see human beings as opportunities, not burdens, and who prefer growth to redistribution in their economies.
In the final analysis if a country doesn’t have a right to say “no” to anybody, what right does it have to secure borders? It is impossible to will the end without also willing the means.
I have a much more likely candidate to blame for the chaos in Calais not to mention the thousands of refugees braving the Mediterranean to reach Italy and, ultimately, the prosperity of Germany and Northern Europe: American interventionism.
Sort of right. As was pointed out at Lang’s place, it was really Sarkozy (plus the Italians and Brits) who wanted to intercede in Libya. We came into it late. As James has pointed out, very few countries have the ability to project force away from their own country. That is why they pushed us so hard to join.
Steve